Batsheva Hay knows her designs inspire a strong reaction. The prairie-style dresses, some with matching bonnet, might best be described as the stuff of a Laura Ingalls Wilder fever dream. “Some people are like, ‘What is that?’ ” says the 37-year-old. “This one PR guy was totally trying to put me down, like, ‘Your dresses are old, they are like the official wardrobe of the Me Too movement!’ ” Hay laughs: “I was like, ‘Whatever!’ At least he feels strongly about it.”

That IDGAF attitude is what her line, Batsheva, is all about. Before starting her label two years ago, Hay was a lawyer on the partner track at a Manhattan law firm. “My whole life I had been shy and studious. If someone criticized something I wrote, I’d be heartbroken,” she says. But fashion, especially dramatic period pieces, had been an escape. When the self-described introvert wasn’t racking up billable hours in corporate attire, she’d scour vintage racks for ­eighties-era Laura Ashley pieces and “peasant wear.” In this pursuit she finally found relief from her perfectionism.

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Hay, whose husband is fashion photographer Alexei Hay (the couple have two children), launched her own line when she could no longer find what she wanted in secondhand shops. “All of my vintage was tearing. So, as an experi­ment, I went to a pattern maker and asked, ‘What’s the cost for remaking this dress?’ ” says Hay. “She told me it would be kind of expensive. I thought, If I’m going to remake it, I might as well add some things to make it more interesting.” Several ruffles and a double collar later, she’d created something she hadn’t seen anywhere. One dress turned into a collection—cotton dresses and blouses in calico patterns and ginghams with puffed Edwardian sleeves and Peter Pan collars, all under $500—and new confidence. “If someone doesn’t like my clothes, I’m like, ‘Sucks for you,’ because I know they’re cool,” she says. “It’s the only thing in my life that I’ve found where I’m like this.” Luckily for Hay, plenty of people do like it: British retailer MatchesFashion bought her fall collection, and celebs like Natalia Vodianova, Gillian Jacobs, and Natalie Portman have snapped up pieces.

Part of the appeal, no doubt, is that with nary a V-neck or above-the-knee hem, Batsheva is very in sync with today’s modest dressing. “Women today are reevaluating our behavior and our choices,” she says. “ I want [my clothes to embody] what our decisions would be like if we actually made all of our own choices, without considering what men think we should wear.” Imagine, she says, “if we could erase all of what society has told us we had to do.”

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